This week I’m scaling back on the chit-chat so I can show you some horse pictures. I believe it’s important to incorporate multiple horse pictures into my blog. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. Over the years, I’ve taken a zillion horse pictures. This one of Gandalf begging for a carrot always makes me smile. I like the artistic composition of this one, Gandalf all decked out in surcingle and sidereins, ready to be lunged. I’ve taken…
The year 2010 was not a good year for Gandalf. It was the year he lost a tooth and an eye. I ran across his pedigree the other day. I’m not in the breeding or bloodline business so his ancestry doesn’t mean anything to me, except to tell me he had Hanoverian, Trakehner and Westfalen ancestors. He was 17 hh and thin as a rake when I bought him in June 2002. I never knew his history. The dealer I…
It feels like I’ve been whining about winter for weeks now. It’s not just the cold, or the unexpected thaws, or the about-faces that plunge us back into ice and snow. It’s the toll that winter takes on my body. It raises the dreaded question: am I getting too old to ride? I shouldn’t complain. I haven’t had a cold this winter. Or the flu. I haven’t had to drive out to the barn in the dark and come home…
Whenever I want to talk about the horse-human bond, I seem to fill with emotion and lose all my words. I’ve loved horses since before I ever touched a horse. From the very beginning, just looking at a horse filled me with wonder and reverence and yearning. My whole life has been a love affair, not just with the special horses that have been my companions for a time, but with all of horse-kind. What is it that’s so special…
Complaining about the weather is a favourite Canadian pastime, but it’s starting to grow stale. Cold. Warm. Rain. Really cold. Snow. Ice. I want to think about cheerier things. With their chirping and fluttering, the flock of sparrows that live inside Larry’s barn remind me of warmer days and the wild critters I’ve run across while spending time with my horses. There have always been wild critters to see while hacking. I’ve watched red-tailed hawks sizing me up from their…
The picture above shows me riding my old warmblood Gandalf on a brisk autumn day. I’d had some fraidy-cat rider moments on him, but when this picture was taken, they were long past. Recently, though, my fraidy-cat rider moments resurfaced – because of the weather. As you may recall, a week ago, I was complaining because it was -20°C and too cold to ride. After several days, the temperature suddenly shot up to +4°C. All the riders came back to…
I’ve never been a fan of the cold. Today it’s -20°C, too cold even for a winter riding enthusiast, which I’m not. That doesn’t mean I don’t ride in winter. The picture above shows me and one of my earlier horses, Tristan, on a cold winter day. (Notice the box of Kleenex on the shelf, strategically located to deal with drippy noses). But when it gets really cold, it would be easy to stay home. That’s when I remind myself…
The first real cold snap of winter is here. The thermometer reads a steady -14°C (7°F), never budging throughout the short January day. The sky is white and flat, a featureless backdrop for the pine trees and bare-branched maples. Snow sifts down in a fine white powder that builds across the top of Larry’s heavy turnout blanket, and squeaks under my boots. It’s hibernation weather; instinct urges me to find a toasty corner, hunker down with a mug of hot…
The first Christmas that I owned Larry, the owner of his boarding stable treated all the horses in the barn to a session with an animal communicator. Before I tell you what Larry had to say, I want to point out that my background is in the sciences. I worked in a laboratory for most of my adult life, and made decisions based on data, evidence, and rational thought. It doesn’t mean I’m closed-minded. Just because something isn’t explainable doesn’t…
“You’ve been riding all your life. Why do you still need riding lessons?” My non-riding friends ask me this on a regular basis. The answer is complicated. For most of my life, I’ve been surrounded by talented riders and amazing horses, so my bar for what’s ‘good enough’ is set fairly high. I’ve been realistic enough to know that I’m not talented. What I do have going for me, though, is perseverance. When my heart is set on something, I…